THE CHALLENGE OF THE QUR’AN

The Challenge of The Qur’an ~ 287 ~ but the dawn of red democracy has yet to rise over that city. Another important, but ill-fated prophecy was made in 1798 by the British economist, Robert Malthus (1766-1834), more than a thousand years after the Quran was revealed. In his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, he set forth his famous theory on the growth of population. ‘Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.’ Simply stated, growth in population and growth in sustenance are not naturally equal. Human population grows geometrically, that is at a ratio of 1-2-4-8-16-32, while the growth of food supplies maintains an arithmetical ratio: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. Sustenance, therefore, cannot keep up with the astronomical growth in human population. The only solution to this problem, according to Malthus, was for mankind to control its birth rate. The population should not be allowed to exceed a certain limit. If it did, the number of people on earth would become greater than the amount of